Scooter buttons, six bridges, boats

Porto. Kathryn's in the hotel room sewing and writing, and I am unsupervised. "The possibilities are endless."

It's not raining in Porto. It's still chilly, and it's windy, and I'm rolling down Rua de Antero de Quental with the Mamas and the Papas' "California Dreaming" between my ears. Stopped at a fruit stand to buy a couple of pears for breakfast, and the lady shorted me fifteen centimes (dumb foreigner I guess), and I don't even care. It's a lovely day.

I walked all the way past the train station to the first visitors' center we stopped at when we arrived, and I bought a ticket for a Duoro River tour of the six bridges that cross right here. In this immediate area, just up the river is the only place Port wine can be produced. It's like labeling champagne . . . it's a UNESCO world heritage designation. And the really cool thing is the neat little boats on the river is the way the barrels of wine got from the vineyards to town and then to ships that had to anchor beyond the mouth of the river because of the depth. 

It was really dangerous (expensive), so they built the railways to move the wine from field to port -- then the bridge, to get the wine across the river to town, rolling and carting the barrels down the nearly vertical streets to the warehouses then the boats. And I love the lines of the historical boats.

Anyway, standing on the hard (the paved surface of any older port where ships were on- and off-loaded), and looking back at the city, I appreciated the incongruity of jet contrails overtop the spire of a 17th Century church on the hill. I love juxtapositions like that.

I had forty-five minutes to wait so I noshed a ham and cheese with a bottle "media de leite" (coffee with milk) while I waited and watched the panorama of tourists (in the eye of the beholder) passing before me.

Tour groups massed like Pharaoh's plagues swarming like eels, mamas with babies strapped fore or aft, wheelchaired men and women in dozens, a redheaded lad whirling around a lamp standard, a little girl pirouetting under mom's outreaching arm.

During the ham-and-cheese the mandatory accordion-with-tambourine did their thing and passed among the congregation with an outstretched cap. I kicked in my coppers. The folks better dressed than I at the next table just shook their heads and looked affronted. There seems to be a great gulf fixed . . . anyway . . . I digress.

I reported for duty ten minutes before the appointed hour, wind trying to steal the ticket ruffling in my fingers, and was the first to board the yellow-tailed boat. I asked why yellow (wondering if it were a traditional thing). I had already decided it was for different fleets, and my conclusion was confirmed. I asked how long the line had been in business and was told "trinta e oito." Pointing to my ear, I asked the ticket-taker to repeat "oito," and he replied "oiito" like "biscoito." We laughed together. He asked where I was from, and hearing "Texas," responded "Cowboys! Barbecue! Yahoo!" Again we laughed and, thumbing my chest I replied "Cowboy sem cavalo." (Cowboy without a horse.) It was a great exchange.

Trying to coordinate the recorded narration of the tour was like . . . well, you know how it is when the sound track is not synched with the video. But I got enough.

I walked the railroad bridge both ways across the Duoro. The lower span leaving city center, the upper returning. Did I mention it's seriously uphill to get to the upper span? I think the distance-walked multiplier for Portugal is 1.6.

And I took a photo of a guy on horseback lifting his spear. I took the photo because the device atop his helmet looked like a stylized chicken, and the little black rooster is the national emblem of the country.

Walked the entire bus route back to the hotel. Had to sit and read and breathe for about an hour to stop sweating and let my pulse slow back down.

Enjoy the photos. I prune the living bejesus out of the photos I take before I share them. And these have all been color-damped and cropped. I have to get a "real" camera with a telephoto lens.

Anyway. Thanks for reading. Hope you enjoy.
'Cause Life Is Good. All the way to the ground.